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Interview StarCrawlers Kickstarter Funded, Interview at RPGWatch

Crooked Bee

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Tags: Juggernaut Games; StarCrawlers

StarCrawlers is a sci-fi randomly generated dungeon crawler, and it is now 100% funded on Kickstarter, and RPGWatch has done an interview about it. Have a snippet:

RPGWatch: I noticed that dungeon crawl games seem to be on the rise with indie developers. Was there a reason on why you guys choose to make one?

Juggernaut: We grew up playing games like Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld, Unlimited Adventures, and more recently Etrian Odyssey and Legend of Grimrock, so those are obvious influences for us creating a dungeon crawler. We knew from the beginning we wanted to do a party-based RPG with a Diablo 2 style emphasis on character specs and loot, giving you virtually endless potential for developing and improving your crew. Plus we just really like dungeon crawling.

RPGWatch: In your game description you mention mention the game will be randomly generated. Can you go into more details on how it will work, and how the story will tie into it?

Juggernaut: Our procedural content generation is something we’ve gotten a lot of questions about, and more than a few raised eyebrows, which we welcome. The obvious question is “how can you tell a compelling story if your content is completely randomly generated?”. Well, you can’t - if we’re just slapping rooms together and sprinkling in random mobs and items, then the player is telling the story with their actions and we’ve got something more roguelike. While that’s awesome and can be fun to play, that’s not what we’re trying with StarCrawlers.

On the mission level, we’re focusing on content generation that is based off a specific story. The Narrative AI system looks at the scenario of the mission you’re on and creates appropriate content, with randomized elements, that match the story. For example: you accept a job to infiltrate Titan Metallurgy and extract one of their employees for another corporation to interrogate. The employee in question is being transported in cryo to one of Titan’s remote facilities, so you’re going to sneak aboard the transport ship and extract them before arrival. Given that scenario, the Narrative AI has a lot of factors to work with when building out the mission level: your reputation with Titan, the corp offering the job, your difficulty settings, your reputation for being bloodthirsty or professional, and so on. This all can be factored into random variables in the level: where the employee is and how much info you have going in, how they’ll react if you accidently wake them, how long until the ship reaches it’s destination, the security detail of the ship, etc.

The goal with our procedural content is to tell a fresh take on the story with successive playthroughs, and we’re excited by the possibilities!

RPGWatch: Looking at the project you decided to ask for $65,000. Is it enough to fund the game, and how did you decide the final amount?

Juggernaut: We’ve already invested about twice that much in the development of StarCrawlers, and what we asked for is enough to take the game to the finish line, at least the base version. We’d love to get into some of the stretch goals as well so we can expand our selection of character classes, add hero class enemies and elite mini-bosses as well.​

The Kickstarter campaign has 13 days left to go, so you can still jump in if you want.
 

Eyeball

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This is the first Dickstarter project I ever bothered to back. The promise of multiple randomised dungeons and attractive roboty Graphics won me over.

It had better be the best game ever created or I demand my 13 dollars the fuck back!
 

Eyeball

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What I don't get is that if the game made like 30.000 extra in KS Funding, they would add two more classes to the game.

When they only promised very few classes to begin with, it should be game design 101 to add more classes to promote game longevity. What gives?
 

Mortmal

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Why an interview at rgpwatch and not here ? is our money stinking ? Theres much more traffic on the dex , bet we did the most funding.
 

Eyeball

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Maybe the devs don't want their game to be Associated with nazism and transsexuals?

Just a thought.
 

SuicideBunny

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What I don't get is that if the game made like 30.000 extra in KS Funding, they would add two more classes to the game.

When they only promised very few classes to begin with, it should be game design 101 to add more classes to promote game longevity. What gives?
more classes will come as dlc either way. at least one of the silhouettes in the backer pack looks like a class unlock and it's retarded to have event choices based on classes when you have 4 classes and a 4 member party.
 
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Excidium

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What's with indies and procedurally generated content? It doesn't really matter when the content is so shallow it can barely keep the player interested for more than a few hours.
 

Eyeball

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I imagine it takes less time to code a decent random map generator than it does to lovingly handcraft dozens of maps full of monsters and treasure.

No complaints from me - the two Things a modern game needs for me to play it for ages is 1) good modding tools and 2) a RMG.
 

SuicideBunny

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I imagine it takes less time to code a decent random map generator than it does to lovingly handcraft dozens of maps full of monsters and treasure.
when i think about what you actually need for proper quality random generation that doesn't get boring real fast (as it does in any jrpg that has random maps), that is plenty of special rooms and special floor themes/layouts, different layout rules based on map type and so on, it seems like a lot more work than just making a few maps by hand... of course hardly anybody ever bothers with proper quality when it comes to procedural generation.
 

VonVentrue

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The Kickstarter campaign has 13 days left to go, so you can still jump in if you want.
can't because still no paypal.

Today's your lucky day.
Update#11:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/125859261/starcrawlers/posts/759450

StarCrawlers.com is now setup with support for PayPal - if you’ve got friends who are unable to support via Kickstarter, please let them know about http://starcrawlers.com/crowdfund/ Any funding we receive via the PayPal widget will be added to the Kickstarter total (once we clear 100%!) and will help count towards stretch goals. Please note the Kickstarter page total will not reflect this, but we’ll include the running total in updates.
 

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
The Kickstarter campaign has 13 days left to go, so you can still jump in if you want.
can't because still no paypal.

Today's your lucky day.
Update#11:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/125859261/starcrawlers/posts/759450

StarCrawlers.com is now setup with support for PayPal - if you’ve got friends who are unable to support via Kickstarter, please let them know about http://starcrawlers.com/crowdfund/ Any funding we receive via the PayPal widget will be added to the Kickstarter total (once we clear 100%!) and will help count towards stretch goals. Please note the Kickstarter page total will not reflect this, but we’ll include the running total in updates.
they should update the kickstarter frontpage with paypal info, not just hide it in some update.
 

Misconnected

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Pretty sure it was when you wrote the post, at least. Maybe time to polish the glasses? :D
 

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
Maybe time to polish the glasses? :D
k-bigpic.jpg

anyhoo, after backing this, darkest dungeon, mandate and mage's initiation, i think i'm done with backing for the foreseeable future...
 

Bitcher1

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This is weird shit? You ain't seen shit yet, son.

dn6961-1_576.jpg

Pleasant dreams, the Old Ones are watching over you... from below :troll:
 

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